


Bells in your pocket, bells on your toes; Leave a little magic where'er you go

by WaifsandStrays



Series: Wishcraft [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 03:16:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaifsandStrays/pseuds/WaifsandStrays
Summary: Across the alley and over the puddles, there is a boy. He can't make charms, only sell them. He's bewitched Andrew anyway.





	Bells in your pocket, bells on your toes; Leave a little magic where'er you go

**Author's Note:**

> This is cross posted to tumblr and is part of my witch/spell shop au!

Across the alley and over the puddles, there is a boy. He works every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, opens the tiny cafe all by himself. He can't weave any enchantments but he can sell them.

He and Andrew run into each other during Andrew’s midmorning smoke break every time he works. He’s usually hauling a bag of trash to the dumpster while Andrew ignored Tisiphone trying to claw her way through the oak door to his side and inhales what nicotine he can through his shivering.

Coffee house boy is pretty, Andrew supposes. If you like your boys red haired and blue eyed, with smiles like a shy sunbeam. He doesn't speak, just waves and ducks back into the chaos of his own life. But for a few seconds, while he waves and smiles, Andrew can pretend.

Nicky always asks after him, Andrew’s Sunset Boy. He is the only one who ever goes to the coffee shop, brings back rosehip tea for luck, pumpkin lattes heavy with nutmeg for prosperity and peppermint mochas to ward off illness. Andrew never drinks them, lets the drinks and the magic go cold at his elbow. Why subscribe to parlour tricks when he can magick his own luck into being?

“Did you see him?” Nicky asks, breaking Andrew out of his post smoke reverie. Siphy grumbles from her perch on his shoulders and swats at Munin as the raven flutters by. Nicky scolds her with a wave of his fingers, sending tiny orbs of light through the shop for her to chase. “Your Sunset Boy?”

“Calling a thing yours doesn't make it so,” Andrew reminds him, edging by to slip back into his workshop. Nicky and Aaron are booked solid today, one reading after another, and if Andrew wants to get any work done before the shop opens at noon, he needs to start now.

“Andrew.” Nicky has that pinched look on his face again, the one that says Andrew has said something odd again. “Would you at least talk to him? Matt says he takes the garbage every day just to get a glimpse of you.”

Something sour settles in Andrew’s stomach and he closes the door in Nicky’s face. His cousin means well but… Well, Andrew and admiration have a rocky history at best. He sometimes wonders if the nose ring, the long turquoise braid and the intricate tattoos aren't all things he put in place so people had a reason to stare that he could trust. 

Andrew puts all thoughts of Sunset Boy away and focuses on coaxing a foxglove back into bloom.

She’s stubborn, leaves and buds curled tight against the autumn chill. She doesn't want to wake up for a hedgewitch’s games, she tells him. Run along, human boy, whispers through his bones. Andrew doesn't fight her, only sends her echoes of warmth and the conjured sunlight in the shop. Eternal summer, he promises her.

Slowly, so slowly it would seem a trick or wishful thinking if he didn't know better, Andrew watches her leaves unfurl, delicately speckled blossoms of pink and white bursting into color before his eyes. He smiles, small and private, something just for this flower who has given him something beautiful to look at on a dull grey day.

Tap-tap-tap! Knuckles on the glass. Aaron. Andrew turns to face his twin, feeling the subtle wash of Aaron’s magic sliding against his own. It’s brief, over in a flash, but no less poignant. Aaron is sad.

“What’s wrong?” Andrew asks, putting the foxglove under his brightest miniature sun. She curls a leaf around his finger in thanks.

“I haven't seen Kevin in a few days. Have you?” Aaron's face is grey and pinched. He hasn't been sleeping and his cheeks are sallow. Nammu is curled around his bare arm like a bracelet, her pearlescent scales reflecting Aaron’s candy pink hair. It’s been twisted into a corona of braids, molded into the shape of roses. Impressive magic if Andrew says so himself.

Kevin, the specter that haunted their shop since before it was theirs, was something of a mystery. He had no concrete rules that they could understand, often following Aaron across town to his tenth floor walk up with no repercussions, yet he couldn’t cross the lines of rowan and salt melted into the staircases. He had no memories of his previous life or his death and spent most of his time correcting their bookkeeping. He was a class A prick. He was also Aaron’s boyfriend.

“No,” Andrew says finally, “but he’s disappeared before. He always turns up, Aaron.” Andrew didn't like to be the only one in charge of comforting Aaron. He always seemed to mess it up no matter how hard he tried. Aaron smiles for him anyway.

“You’re right. He’ll turn up. Sit in with me until he does?”

Andrew nods. If the choice was between letting Aaron drain his magic or letting his twin fumble into the void without a lifeline, well, it was really no choice at all was it?

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me and other content for this verse at my tumblr kibumunnie.tumblr.com!


End file.
